The $524,594 in miscellaneous value management changes approved by the Board of Education in August, plus removing parts of the base project and making them alternates, brought the total cost down to $44,114,712, still $2,538,712 more than the budgeted amount.

But
Ed Barrett
of Morganti told board members that other cost savings have not yet been factored into that number.

The original project work was divided into 12 bid packages. Morganti has further divided it, so there are now 30 bid packages.

This will make the bidding more competitive, because it allows more companies to bid on parts of the project, including smaller companies who specialize in certain areas. Barrett estimated the savings from having 30 packages to be between $200,000 and $300,000.

The board decided to rebid the project in early spring, so construction can be started in May, which will cut three months from the project's time line, since more can be completed before next winter. Barrett said this will be an additional savings of about $200,000.

Other potential savings could come from getting reduced bids due to dropping prices in the economy. The original bids came back July 29, when oil prices were at a peak.

"No one truly believes the numbers we got in July are true," said Lillian Bittman.

Chairman Elaine McClure looked for reassurance from the business director that the number was getting close to the budgeted amount.

"Conceivably, you're whittling the number down during a rebid,"
Ron Bienkowski
said. "It becomes like a Chinese puzzle - you can't put the pieces together without the pieces from the rebid."

The board considered removing the interior bridge to the addition and a staircase, known as "stair four," from the base project for an estimated savings of $600,000, but the vote failed 4-3.

Members of the board, as well as the superintendent and principal, were concerned about students' safety in the already narrow hallways.

"Without the bridge there will only be one way in and out of the 25 classroom area," said
Charles Dumais
, the high school principal.

At the end of the night, the vote for rebid was 6-1. The nay vote came from Kathy Fetchick.

"We're starting to decimate the project with an effort to get down to the (budgeted amount)," she said. "I don't know how we're going to get there without a redesign."

David Nanavaty
was the board member most outspoken against a redesign. He went step by step through the project, showing how much time would be lost by redoing steps already done.

"This project started before I even came on this board," Nanavaty said. That was six years ago. "Anyone who talks to me about a rebid at this point is talking to a deaf person."

"I think we owe it to the voters to try again to get more accurate numbers before making hard decisions (of what to cut out)," Bittman said.

Bittman, who was secretary, was unanimously voted the school board's new vice-chair during the meeting, and Kathy Fetchick was unanimously voted secretary.